Farmers and fishermen in the Maldives have long relied on an ancient calendar to guide their daily lives.

The Nakaiy system divides the year into 27 distinct periods, each named after a star or constellation in the night sky.

Any one period in the calendar tells you about expected weather and tidal patterns, navigational routes, and fishing conditions. The Nakaiy was created through centuries of careful observation and local knowledge, passed down through families as an essential tool for survival.

But things are now changing. The climate crisis is leading to more extreme weather events across the Indian Ocean island nation and upending the Nakaiy calendar.

“When you go and speak to communities and ask them what kind of impacts they are facing, a lot of elders will tell you that the weather, it doesn’t follow the calendar anymore,” explained Aishath Reesha Suhail, a programme officer in the Maldives’ Ministry of Tourism and Environment.

As the effects of climate change worsen, it is a real prospect that the Nakaiy may be abandoned by local people, representing a major cultural loss to the Maldives.

‘Systemic and growing threat’

With extreme weather becoming the norm, communities are observing a domino effect of consequences in their everyday lives. The slow onset of heritage loss is now being seen across continents, but notably among small islands in remote parts of the ocean.

“Climate change represents a systemic and growing threat to cultural heritage worldwide,” a UNESCO spokesperson told Climate Home, adding that the World Heritage Committee has identified climate change as “one of the most significant long-term risks affecting properties across all regions.”

UNESCO, the UN body for education, science and culture, defines the loss of cultural heritage as “the erosion of traditional knowledge systems, craftsmanship, social practices and identity, particularly where communities are displaced or livelihoods disrupted”. A clear example is historical sites and even entire islands washed into the ocean as a result of rising sea levels and coastal erosion. 

The Maldives is dealing with such a situation now. The Koagannu Cemetery is a 900-year-old resting place, located on the country’s southernmost atoll, a mere 50 metres from the shoreline. The monument’s intricate coral gravestones are being actively threatened by the encroaching Indian Ocean. 

The government and local community have responded to this challenge with emergency protection measures. Sandbags and concrete structures have been installed along the coastline, complemented by large numbers of palm trees to create a seawall. A wider solution is ‘beach nourishment’, a common practice in the Maldives where sand from elsewhere is brought in to replace what has been lost through erosion. Taken together, these solutions have so far protected the cemetery.

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Among the many issues climate change creates, cultural heritage is not always front of mind. In the Maldives, one of the main barriers people face is awareness. “Most of what we are dealing with relates to the erosion of our islands along with areas such as fisheries… but we are quite limited in our capacity to do something about it,“ Suhail said.

“We don’t understand the full breadth of the issue at present because we haven’t been able to do extensive research on the matter,” she added. However, assessing the extent of the damage – and how to respond effectively – is a key priority for the government, outlined in its latest climate plan, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution, and as part of its National Adaptation Plan process.

Fishing is at the core of the country’s culture and identity, employing thousands of people. Most dishes include fish – “we have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Suhail noted – but the climate crisis and overfishing are shifting how and when communities can fish. Tuna makes up 98% of all fish caught in the Maldives, but warmer ocean temperatures are changing migratory patterns, pushing the species into deeper, colder waters.

As a critical economic and cultural resource, the government has outlined a range of solutions to protect the fisheries sector in its first Biennial Transparency Report to the UN. These include using real-time tracking data to improve the efficiency of fishing operations; investing in canneries to increase fish storage; and diversifying away from tuna through marine farming.

Culture and nature go hand-in-hand

The same pattern is playing out elsewhere.

Palau and the Maldives are not close to one another. The two states are separated by around 4,000 miles and sit in different corners of the ocean. But both are experiencing very similar climate challenges, based on their position as a set of scattered, low-lying islands surrounded by an imposing body of blue water.

In the same way as the Maldives, Palau’s cultural heritage is closely tied to “land, coastlines and traditional food systems,” according to Toni Soalabla, at the Palau Office of Climate Change.

“Many of the places that hold stories, history and identity of our communities are located along the coast and are increasingly exposed to erosion and sea level rise,” she said.

One of these places is Ngerutechei village, reportedly the oldest in Palau, and home to ancient stone paths and carvings. The village provides a glimpse into the past social values and culture of the people in this western Pacific nation.

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As part of the development of Palau’s National Adaptation Plan, the government has worked with local leaders to identify similar sites of cultural significance. The plan encourages communities to use their own knowledge to create protective measures for these sites.

Climate change is also prompting communities to take up traditional land and food practices again. These include cultivating taro, a stable food source that has historically supported water, soil and food security on the islands. 

“These systems developed over generations in response to local environmental conditions, so strengthening them today is both a climate adaptation measure and a way of maintaining cultural knowledge that might otherwise fade,” said Soalabla.

Cultural practices in Palau have developed alongside the natural ecosystems that people rely on to survive. It is within this context that researchers believe adaptation policies should be created. Recognising this relationship “can strengthen both community identity and environmental resilience at the same time”, according to Soalabla.

Heritage on the global stage

The issue of cultural loss has not gone unnoticed in international climate negotiations. 

Small island states such as the Maldives have used their role at the UN to push for greater awareness and action, with some key successes.

In 2015, the Paris Agreement established a Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) which recognised that countries needed to do something about climate change now and not later. However, it took six years before a framework and a set of adaptation targets were agreed at the UN climate summit in Glasgow to pursue this goal. 

From this came the establishment of seven overall themes – from poverty eradication to access to health – to guide adaptation action and a set of around 60 indicators to measure progress against the targets.

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Emilie Beauchamp, an adaptation specialist at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), said that “cultural heritage was highlighted as one of the global priorities [of the GGA Framework] and is one of the seven themes, so it is considered very important by the international community.”

The much-debated set of indicators, only finalised in Belém at last year’s COP30, include five related to cultural heritage with a focus on preserving cultural practices and important sites that are “guided by traditional knowledge, Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge and local knowledge systems”. A spokesperson for UNESCO said the inclusion of heritage indicators “marks an important recognition that climate impacts extend beyond economic losses”. 

While critics said the set of final indicators was rushed through by the Brazilian presidency, they now serve as guidance for national governments that wish to implement plans to protect their common heritage. The missing piece of the puzzle remains how to finance these plans – something notably absent from the Belém text, which made clear that the adaptation indicators “do not create new financial obligations or commitments, nor liability or compensation”.

The lack of financial commitments proved disappointing for many small states grappling with how to prevent their cultural history from being entirely forgotten, especially at a time when adaptation finance remains below requirements. A recent UNEP report found that developing nations would need an estimated US$310 billion per year in 2035 to adapt to climate change, while current public financing was around $26 billion.

At these low levels “only a small percentage of what the framework outlines could be implemented,” according to Beauchamp.

The challenge of cultural heritage

When looking at low-lying islands on a map, they can appear as specks of land amid a vast ocean. Many of the stories from these remote places go unnoticed. But the specks represent millennia of human culture that is slowly being lost to the ocean.

While the international community has now recognised the problem and solutions exist, the recurring issue of scarce finance may prevent governments from taking sustained action. Island communities have already been forced to move home as sea levels rise, leaving behind their cultural connections to a place.

The value of any cultural asset, or of human heritage, can be judged by how it is engaged with over generations. Without human intervention, many historical sites, language, cuisine and other local customs would become a forgotten part of history. The rapid onset of climate change brings the role of cultural heritage into sharp relief, challenging communities to decide in real time what they value, what deserves saving, and how to achieve that.

Stories of cultural loss are not confined to small islands but it is here where the challenge is presenting most acutely. The experiences of these vulnerable nations in protecting their heritage will provide the litmus test for effective adaptation responses elsewhere.

Adam Wentworth is a freelance writer based in Brighton, UK.

(Main image: The Isdhoo Havitha is an ancient Buddhist monastery in the Maldives, located moments from the shoreline. Photo: Ashwa Faheem) 

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Island nations fight to save cultural heritage from climate change

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